This webcast requires both a phone dial-in and an Internet connection.

Does the very word “Hackathon” have you crawling to the nearest corner, with visions of computer code dancing in your head? Have you ever wondered what exactly they are, and why you should care? Hackathons can be a great tool, bringing together groups of people to complete a set goal using the combination of their skills – computer-based and otherwise. They are not just for the technologists – your individual expertise can be a vital part of a “hack.” Open Access Week is now just around the corner (October 21-27) and a Hackathon is a great way to stir interest, involvement, and possibly create finished projects using Open Access content.

Our guest speaker, Brian Glanz, is the founder of the Open Science Federation and co-founder of the American chapter of the Open Knowledge Foundation. With both organizations, Brian has lots of experience participating in and deploying Hackathons where Open Access content played a critical part. For two recent examples, he points to the over 100 events associated with http://hackforchange.org in June, and July’s http://hack4ac.com in the scholarly publishing community.

Brian will fully explain what Hackathons are, how you deploy them, and why we in the library community should be participating in and utilizing them.

To accommodate interest in every time zone, this 1-hour event will be recorded and available on our website shortly afterwards.

Please join us for a lively and interactive discussion. SPARC’s Executive Director, Heather Joseph, will be moderating questions during the webcast. Feel free to post preliminary comments and questions for Brian right here.